Semuliki National Park

Semliki National Park is one of Uganda’s newest Parks having been gazetted in 1993 which occupies about 194 square kilometers of East Africa’s only lowland tropical rainforest.

The national park is located in the far west of Uganda Bwamba County within Bundibugyo district on Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The park covers a land area of 220 square kilometers (85 square miles) with a vast diversity of plant and animal species together with microhabitats being located at the junction of several climatic and ecological zones.

Most of the Park’s vegetation is majorly medium altitude moist evergreen to the semi-deciduous forest. For game viewing tours, the park has got over 60 mammal species and more than 400 bird species for bird-watching safaris.

The park’s dominant mammal species include forest buffaloes, leopards, hippos, Mona monkeys, water chevrotains, bush babies, civets, elephants, and the pygmy flying squirrel.

Primate safaris are also done to the presence of eight primate species including red-tailed monkey, Vervet monkey, blue and De Brazza’s monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey, olive baboon, black and white colobus, and Chimpanzee together with over 300 butterfly species.

Semuliki valley national park is home to 400 bird species 216 of which including the lyre-tailed honeyguide forest ground thrush and Sassi’s olive greenbul are true forest birds.

There are also other 12 unique bird species, which are extremely limited in East Africa but can be seen by tourists spending a few days in the Park and these include Western bronze-napped pigeon, yellow-throated cuckoo, piping hornbill, red-sided broadbill, Xavier’s greenbul, capuchin babbler, yellow long-bill, blue-headed flycatcher, red-billed helmet-shrike, crested malimbe, pale fronted anti-pecker and Chestnut-breasted negro-finch among others.

Bird Watching Safari in Semuliki National Park